EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: SREBRENICA GENOCIDE TO BE COMMEMORATED THROUGHOUT EU EVERY 11TH JULY

Courtesy: Srebrenica Genocide Blog

July 11th as a Day of Commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide throughout the European Union (EU)

European Parliament adopts Srebrenica Genocide Resolution

The European Parliament has overwhelmingly adopted a resolution (by 556 to nine, with 22 abstentions) proclaiming the 11th of July a Day of Commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide throughout the European Union (EU).

After the fall of Srebrenica on July 11th 1995, Bosnian Serb forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, and paramilitary units rapidly executed more than 8000 Bosniak (Muslim) men, boys, and elderly, who had sought safety in the area. Moreover, approximately 25000 people were forcibly deported in a UN-assited ethnic cleansing.

The victims' bodies were first buried in mass graves, then dug out with bulldozers and moved to smaller graves. Remains can be scattered in several locations, and are not released for burial until two-thirds of the body have been recovered.

The European Parliament resolution called the Srebrenica Genocide "the biggest war crime in Europe since the end of WWII."

The assembly called it "a symbol of the international community’s impotence to intervene and protect civilians."

“Proclaiming July 11 as a day of remembrance for the Srebrenica genocide should be a step in the right direction for reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the region,” European Commissioner for Foreign Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in support of the initiative.

“The EP stresses that reconciliation is an important part of the European integration process, a process in which the religious communities, the media and the education system play a significant role”, the Parliament added, noting that bringing to justice those responsible for the massacres is an important step towards peace and stability in the region.

“In view of the fact that General Ratko Mladic is still at large almost 14 years after the tragic events, Parliament also demands that further efforts be made to bring the remaining fugitives to justice, stressing that bringing to justice those responsible for the massacres in and around Srebrenica is an important step towards peace and stability in the region,” the European Parliament said.

Members of the European Parliament said additional measures must be taken to find and arrest those responsible, including the former Bosnian Serb leader General Ratko Mladic.

“What happened in Srebrenica in July 1995 is the worst single atrocity that Europe has experienced since World War II,” said Bosnia’s High Representative Miroslav Lajcak in his statement, welcoming the EU resolution. "By commemorating the victims of the genocide, we can help reduce the pain of those still waiting to hear what exactly happened to their relatives killed in Srebrenica and elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina."

The resolution was drafted following a meeting between European Parliament President Diana Wallis, who is from the liberal and democratic grouping, and members of the Association of Mothers from Srebrenica and Zepa. Wallis and Jelko Kacin, a Slovenian delegate and the rapporteur on Serbia, attended the commemoration organized in Srebrenica last year. Explaining the draft Resolution, Kacin said that “we must build Srebrenica in our common historical memory”. He said the resolution was not intended for the past, “although it speaks about the dead”, but is relevant to “the living and their better future."

Editor's Note: In 2007, Jelko Kacin issued the following statement, which we would like to share with you:

"Anybody who kills a single human being commits a crime, but those who commit genocide represent an international and political challenge."

EUROPE'S WORST GENOCIDE SINCE ADOLF HITLER

Europe's worst genocide since Hitler: How Dutch peacekeepers looked on as Karadzic's men butchered 8,000 at Srebrenica

By David Jones
Daily Mail

Herded into a white-stone farm building at machine-gun point by Serbian soldiers, scores of captured Bosnian civilians were ordered to sit cross-legged on the hay-strewn floor.

The ragged band of prisoners had been marched here on the assurance that they would soon be fed and clothed, and reunited with their wives and children.

But when the stiflingly hot storehouse had been crammed so tightly that they could barely breathe, the door and shuttered windows were suddenly opened.

And in that fleeting instant, between seeing the guns trained on them and being cut down, they realised the terrible truth.

In an act of barely believable savagery, the soldiers fired on the defenceless men with every available weapon.

Grenades and bazookas were even used, filling the room with acrid black smoke. With wounded men writhing and groaning, and blood oozing over the straw, it was like a vision from hell.

So far as is known, just one man emerged alive from the carnage that took place at the deserted farm on that terrible day in July, 1995. He did so by hiding beneath a pile of corpses for 24 hours, until the Serbs had gone.

A humble farmer with a wife and three children, then aged 51, his name is Hakija Hadzic, and he is among the few survivors of the worst act of mass murder in Europe since World War II. An event remembered as the Srebrenica Massacre.

Today, on entering Srebrenica, incongruously surrounded by the most beautiful mountain landscape, it is immediately appare nt in the eyes of the people that they have witnessed scenes which no human being should ever have to see.

Those scenes, hauntingly described to me by a few tormented survivors, unfolded on four shameful days between July 11 and 15,1995.

According to the most accurate records, precisely 8,373 Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered by the Serbian army during that brief period.

Many of the victims were harmless old men, women and children, and they were raped, tortured and butchered with such callous deliberation that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are in no doubt it was an act of genocide.

It may have been orchestrated with breathtaking ruthlessness by Radovan Karadzic, who was finally captured this week, yet the Bosnian Serb president is by no means the only one whose hands are indelibly stained with blood.

For at the time, Srebrenica — a town of some 60,000 so- called Bosniaks (Bosnian muslims) marooned in Serb-held territory — had been designated a ‘safe enclave’. Its besieged residents were supposedly under the protection of a UN peace-keeping force, comprising of 400 Dutch troops.

With their World War II weaponry and lack of strong leadership, the Dutch were hopelessly ill-equipped to perform this task. They were also hidebound by ludicrous rules of engagement which made them powerless to fend off the Serbs.

The massacre happened in the final months of the 1992-95 Bosnian War, which broke out after the Bosnians declared independence after the break up of Serbcontrolled Yugoslavia.

Growing increasingly frustrated at his army’s failure to capture Srebrenica, one of several areas of stubborn resistance, in March, 1995, Karadzic issued his now notorious ‘Directive 7’.

This was an order to his most senior commander, General Ratko Mladic, to use whatever means necessary to isolate the enclave and ‘create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope for further survival or life for the inhabitants.’

The murderous Mladic (who remains at large, despite the U.S. government’s offer of a $5 million bounty for his capture) was in no doubt of the task assigned to him.
He was to attack the UN protectorate, round up all the men-folk, and systematically wipe them out.

Shortly before he launched the operation, the Bosniak garrison leader, Naser Oric, and several senior officers were airlifted to safety by helicopter, leaving a ragbag garrison command.

Deprived for months of food supplies and fresh water, the thousands of civilians in their charge were beyond desperation. Eight had already died of starvation.

By July 9, the Serbs’ intentions were becoming alarmingly apparent, even to the hapless Dutch, encamped on the outskirts of the town at Potocari.

Their compound was surrounded and shots were fired from the woods to intimidate them. Even if the peacekeepers had had the stomach for a fight, they were stymied by rules stating that they could only return fire after identifying the precise Serb tank or sniper who had first shot at them.

Before long Srebrenica was being over-run and the Bosniaks were abandoned to their fate.

In their panic, they divided into two groups: those who decided to try to escape across the mountains to other enclaves, or Bosnian government-held territory, and those who opted to seek sanctuary in the UN compound.

The former were mainly women and children, who thought they would be afforded some mercy and allowed to pass out of Srebrenica unharmed; the latter mainly men who knew full well how the Serbs treated Bosniak prisoners.

By the evening of July 11, some 25-30,000 were clamouring at the high wire gates of the Dutch compound, but the UN troops — who had been assured by Mladic that buses would be sent to ferry them to safety — would not let them in.

The next day, the Serb troops waded into the pathetic, bedraggled throng of Bosnians, knives and bayonets drawn. Karadzic’s summary executions, which now extended to women and children, had begun.

One witness later described how a Serb soldier ordered a mother to stop her baby crying. When she failed, he grabbed the child, and, laughing, slit its throat.

Begging for mercy, another mother saw her three teenage sons marched away. She found them later, also stabbed through the throat. Another survivor saw about 100 men herded behind the old Zinc factory, lined up, and machine-gunned.

By now the Serbs, many drunk on slivovic and other strong spirits, were intent on degrading the captured Bosniaks — once their friends and neighbours — in every imaginable manner.

A witness described watching a young girl being raped by one soldier on a bloody mattress in a deserted building as another stood guard, waiting his turn. ‘She was in total shock and afterwards went crazy,’ he says.

Rather than face a similar ordeal, a sizeable number of women hanged themselves in the forest.

Inside the compound, meanwhile, the hamstrung Dutch did nothing until a young soldier saw a girl of seven or eight clinging to the fence with a gaping hole in her leg.
Deeply moved, he opened the gates to bring her in, whereupon the thousands of refugees poured in after her.

‘I reckon I saved about 30 other lives that day — but nobody wants to know about that,’ he told me bitterly. ‘We are remembered as cowards.’

Indeed they are, and seven years after the massacre, when an official report into its causes severely criticised its army, the Dutch government acknowledged its shame by resigning en masse.

There is widespread agreement this was necessary, for the death toll included many thousands of those who chose to stay in Srebrenica, under the ‘protection’ of the Dutch, and wait for the Serbs’ promised convoy of blue and white buses.

The 10-15,000 Bosnians who took to the mountains fared no better. Joined by a band of several hundred soldiers from the 28th Division of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s army, they separated into three columns, with the intention of taking different routes to safe territory in the town of Tuzla.

Even for fit, well-fed men, this would have meant a three-day trek through parlous terrain. But many had no clothes or boots, and they were weakened by hunger, terrified and disoriented. To survive, they ate leaves and slugs, and bound their bleeding feet in rags.

As they left the cover of the forest and crossed a main road, the first and biggest column of Bosniaks was bombarded by fierce artillery fire, and two-thirds were wiped out.

At 8pm on July 12, many more were cut down in an ambush. Another offshoot of the massacre took place after a Bosnian prisoner was tricked into persuading his comrades to come out of hiding and negotiate.

Those who fell for the ruse were lined up on the roadside with their hands behind their heads and mown down.

One witness, remained in hiding behind a nearby tree, saw a Serb soldier gouge out the eyes of one of his comrades, slice off his ears, and carve a cross in his head before sending him off to be shot.

In the ensuing man-hunt, thousands more were rounded up. Sometimes they would answer a call for help, supposedly from a wounded comrade, only to be confronted with a Serb soldier.

One man who surrendered that day was Hakija Hadzic, who had fled Srebrenica after ushering his wife and three children to Potacari, where he supposed they would be taken to safety.

Hakija took me back to the scene. It was the first time he had returned to that benighted place and I will never forget his terror. As we approached, he began trembling and begged us not to stop the car.

Listening to his story, his reaction was understandable. He had given himself up, he said, because he was close to starvation, and feared he would not survive a few more hours in the forest.

At first, he believed he might be treated mercifully. As he sat beside the road with countless other Bosnians, baking under a fierce afternoon sun, Mladic himself had come to address them.

The beaming general promised the men new boots and fresh water, and assured them they would soon be reunited with their families. ‘We all applauded him,’ Hakija recalls.
After he left, however, they were taken to the farm building, some miles away, at Kravica, where many of the men later found bulldozed into mass graves were slain.

His survival is little short of a miracle. He remained beneath the bodies even when the Serbs returned and shouted for anyone left alive to declare themselves, with the assurance that they would be spared and enlisted in the Serb army.

He was well advised not to trust them, for those who stood up were shot. Only when the Serb guards left their posts did he make his escape.

After an epic two-week scramble through the forested mountains, on July 26 he arrived at Bosnian-held Zepa, and two months later he was reunited with his family, who had made it on to one of the blue and white buses.

In the great human catastrophe of Srebrenica, such uplifting stories are very rare.

Some time after 1pm on July 16, when the first few male survivors finally stumbled to safety behind Bosnian lines at Tuzla, most reporters were several miles away at the airbase, meeting the convoys of women and children.

But those few who were there to greet the exhausted, emaciated band of escapees described them as ‘an army of ghosts’.

Some later killed themselves, unable to live with their memories. Others, like Hakija Hadzic, are damned to be forever haunted by them. ‘Never a night goes by that I don’t wake up with a nightmare of what happened on that farm,’ he told me.

For reasons only they can explain, it has taken the Serbs 13 long years to begin to bring Radovan Karadzic to justice.

But now, at last, the architect of Directive 7 will have to account for his supreme act of evil.

BOSNIAKS MUSLIMS IN SERBIA TORTURED AND KILLED

Srebrenica Genocide Blog has a new post with disturbing photos of Serbian Police torturing Bosniak civilians in Sanjak region.

Sanjak (Bosnian: Sandžak) is a region, divided between Serbia and Montenegro, mainly populated by Bosniaks Muslims. During 1990s, it was a place of brutal killings and torture of Bosniak population by the oppressive Serbian regime.

Hundreds of Bosniak Muslim villages in Sanjak were ethnically cleansed, looted and burned to the ground. Serbian regime kept the area under tight military control and intense media blockade. Many people went missing or were killed by Serbian terrorists.

View more photos by visit Srebrenica Genocide Blog.

SUPPORT FOR FLORENCE HARTMANN

Statement by numerous human-rights organizations from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosova, Montenegro and Serbia calling for the forthcoming proceedings before the Hague Tribunal against the author - and former spokesperson for its chief prosecutor - Florence Hartmann to be open to the public.

Regarding the proceedings against the journalist Florence Hartmann before the Hague Tribunal on 14 November 2008, for her alleged publication of confidential decisions by the appeal council during the trial against Slobodan Milošević, the human-rights organisations from successor states of the former Yugoslavia [listed below] recall that the content of those decisions was the subject of numerous newspaper reports and public debates, following the February 2007 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ISJ) in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s suit against Serbia , and stress that it is not clear why Florence Hartmann should have ended up before the court at The Hague.

At the time, human-rights organisations throughout the whole region of the former Yugoslavia openly questioned why the Hague Tribunal did not supply the minutes of the Supreme Defence Council (VSO) of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to the ISJ, and why the ISJ failed to demand that Serbia should surrender these documents before reaching its decision on Bosnia-Herzegovina’s charge of genocide against Serbia. The human-rights organisations severely criticised the decision of the Hague Tribunal to accept Serbia’s demand that parts of the VSO records should be suppressed, as well as the ICJ’s decision not to ask Serbia to deliver the above-mentioned minutes on the grounds that it had sufficient evidence to reach a decision. The Serbian human-rights organisations demanded that the Serbian government should make public the VSO minutes, in order to silence the widespread suspicion that it was withholding evidence of its responsibility for genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, something that it has refused to do to this day. The result was a justified suspicion that the Hague Tribunal, with its decision to protect the minutes of the VSO, and the ICJ, with its lack of interest in collecting important evidence, were protecting Serbia from possible responsibility for the genocide committed at Srebrenica.

Human-rights organisations in the region of the former Yugoslavia demand of Serbia to renounce the protective measures, in order to remove the suspicion that the deleted parts of the VSO minutes hide evidence of Serbia’s responsibility in regard to the perpetration of genocide at Srebrenica. The human-rights organisations demand of the Hague Tribunal to explain its decision to accept Serbia’s demands [to delete the relevant parts of the minutes], in order to remove the suspicion that its decisions aimed to protect Serbia from its responsibility for the Srebrenica genocide. For all these reasons, the proceedings against Florence Hartmann should be public and accessible to observation by human-rights organisations.

Action for Human Rights, Podgorica, Montenegro

Aleksandar Zeković, independent researcher on human-rights violations in Montenegro

Anima, Kotor, Montenegro

Association of Lawyers of Montenegro, Montenegro

Association for Women’s Human Rights - KODI, Pecs, Kosovo

Association for Peace and Reconciliation, Đakovica, Kosovo

Association of Women for Women, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

B.a.B.e. - Group for Women’s Rights, Zagreb, Croatia

Bureau for Human Rights, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights, Osijek, Croatia

Centre for Education on Representation and Resources, Prishtina, Kosovo

Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, Prishtina, Kosovo

Censorship - League for the Advancement of Media Freedoms, Split, Croatia

Citizens’ Action, Pančevo, Serbia

Citizens’ Committee for Human Rights, Zagreb, Croatia

Committee for Human Rights, Leskovac, Serbia

Documenta, Zagreb, Croatia

Eye of Vision, Pecs, Kosovo

Foundation for Humanitarian Law, Belgrade, Serbia

Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in RS, Bijeljina, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Helsinki Committe for Human Rights in Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia

Helsinki Citizens’ Committee, Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Integra, Prishtina, Kosovo

Kosova Partners. Prishtina, Kosovo

Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, Belgrade, Serbia

Montenegrin Women’s Lobby, Podgorica, Montenegro

Sandžak Committee for Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms, Novi Pazar, Serbia

Secure Women’s House, Podgorica, Montenegro

Women in Black, Belgrade, Serbia

Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Serbia

Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Montenegro

Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Kosovo

Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Bosnia-Herzegovina

CHOMSKY'S GENOCIDAL DENIAL

Who is Dr Marko Attila Hoare? He is one of the finest scholars on the topic of Srebrenica genocide and Bosnia in general. The following is his article published in various media cycles on the occasion of Noam Chomsky's denial activism. True, Noam Chomsky did not deny Srebrenica massacre, but he did deny Srebrenica genocide... read Dr Marko Attila Hoare's article below:

By Marko Attila Hoare

The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2

In the realm of politics, there are those of us who wear our hearts on our sleeves: proud of what we stand for, we are not afraid to state our positions as clearly as possible, so there is no danger of misunderstanding; we call a spade a spade, and are ready to face the music. On the other hand, there are those who are embarrassed by their own position: they dissemble; muddying the waters so that what they really think is vague and hidden; when confronted by those who recognise them for what they are, they lash out in fear and shame, denying what everyone knows to be the truth.

Two very interesting parallel cases were highlighted in the Guardian newspaper on 17 November. It was reported that David Irving was arrested in Austria for the crime of Holocaust denial. Irving is well known as a Holocaust denier and Hitler apologist, yet when accused of this by the historian Deborah Lipstadt, he attempted to sue her for libel, resulting in his crushing courtroom defeat. Yet he apparently remains ashamed to accept the label that he has inevitably earned. According to the Guardian: ‘Mr Irving has said he does not deny Jews were killed by the Nazis, but challenges the number and manner of Jewish concentration camp deaths. He has questioned the use of large-scale gas chambers to exterminate the Jews, and has claimed that the numbers of those who perished are far lower than those generally accepted. He also contends that most Jews who died at Auschwitz did so from diseases such as typhus, not gas poisoning.’ In other words, lacking the moral courage to say proudly ‘Yes, I deny the Holocaust !’, Irving seeks refuge in the claim that he is merely concerned with the accuracy of details and interpretation. Thus, the Holocaust denier does not merely deny the Holocaust; he denies his own denial. Of course, no rational person would accept such a plea at face value.

On the same day (17 November), a new twist emerged in another saga of genocide-denial: the Guardian printed a grovelling apology to Noam Chomsky for a none-too-flattering interview with him carried out by the award-winning journalist Emma Brockes, published by the Guardian on 31 October, in which Brockes cites Chomsky as having said that the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 was 'probably overstated' and was not even an actual massacre. Chomsky prides himself on being a resolute champion of freedom of speech; on this ground, he has defended the right of Holocaust-deniers to publish what they want; and condemned Britain’s libel laws. Yet faced with Brockes’s exposure of his position, he and his circle of fans retreated from their pro-free-speech position, and organised a campaign of denunciation of Brockes, bombarding the Guardian with letters of complaint, and eventually bullying this spineless newspaper into issuing an unequivocal apology and retraction.

In his letter of complaint to the Guardian, published on 2 November, Chomsky writes: ‘As for her [Brockes’s] personal opinions, interpretations and distortions, she is of course free to publish them, and I would, of course, support her right to do so, on grounds that she makes clear she does not understand.’ Yet as a result of the Chomskyite campaign against Brockes, the Guardian readers’ editor reported on 17 November: ‘The Guardian has now withdrawn the interview from the website.’ Just fancy that ! More shamefully still, the Guardian also apologised for having published a letter by Kemal Pervanic, a survivor of the Serb concentration-camp Omarska, alongside Chomsky’s on 2 November. Pervanic said he was ‘shocked by some of the views of Noam Chomsky in the article by Emma Brockes’s.’ Yet in the words of the Guardian readers’ editor’s grovelling piece of self-criticism: ‘While he has every sympathy with the writer [Pervanic], Prof Chomsky believes that its publication was designed to undermine his position, and addressed a part of the interview which was false... With hindsight it is acknowledged that the juxtaposition has exacerbated Prof Chomsky’s complaint, and that is regretted.’ So much for respecting the right of a concentration-camp survivor to state his opinion.

The irony is all the greater, as the Brockes interview revolved around Chomsky’s defence of the writer Diana Johnstone, allegedly on the grounds of supporting freedom of speech. In 2003, the left-wing Swedish magazine Ordfront published an interview with Johnstone, which repeated her revisionist, genocide-denying views of the Bosnian war. This provoked massive outrage on the part of members of Ordfront’s editorial board and readers, leading to resignation of the editor and a public apology by the magazine for the pain it had caused to Bosnian genocide survivors. Johnstone’s Swedish publisher apparently withdrew its agreement to publish her book. This, in the eyes of Chomsky, consisted of a violation of Johnstone’s ‘freedom of speech’, though nobody had prevented her from disseminating her views through other magazines or publishers; indeed, her book has been published in the UK by Pluto Press, and her articles are available all over the internet, should anyone wish to read them. Nor, it should be said, was Johnstone murdered, tortured or driven out of her home, like hundreds of thousands of Bosnian citizens in the 1990s, whose rights Chomsky has never got round to championing. But assuming the right of a Western author not to have her writings rejected by publishers on political grounds is a more worthy cause than the right of Balkan untermenschen to life and limb, it remains to be seen whether Chomsky’s fellow left-wing libertarians will engage themselves in defence of Brockes as forthrightly as they did in defence of Johnstone.

What was it about Brockes’s interview that so rattled Chomsky ? Chomskyite ire focussed on the question-and-answer headline that introduced the interview:

Q. [Brockes]: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated ?

A. [Chomsky]: My only regret is that I didn’t do it strongly enough.

This was a paraphrase, rather than a literal quotation, and one that was written by the newspaper rather than by Brockes herself, and for which she therefore cannot be held responsible. Nevertheless, it accurately summed up the essence of the matter: Chomsky had supported Johnstone, who claimed that the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated. In his open letter to the Guardian of 13 November, Chomsky claimed it was simply a matter of defending freedom of speech: ‘The truthful part is that I said, and explained at length, that I regret not having strongly enough opposed the Swedish publisher's decision to withdraw a book by Diana (not ‘Diane,’ as the Guardian would have it) Johnstone after it was bitterly attacked in the Swedish press... In the interview, whatever Johnstone may have said about Srebrenica never came up, and is entirely irrelevant in any event, at least to anyone with a minimal appreciation of freedom of speech.’

Chomsky therefore claimed his defence of Johnstone’s freedom of speech had been misrepresented as denial of the Srebrenica massacre. Indeed, Brockes’s portrayal of Chomsky’s alleged denial of Srebrenica was at the heart of Chomsky’s complaint. According to Brockes, Chomsky claimed ‘that during the Bosnian war the ‘massacre’ at Srebrenica was probably overstated.’ Brockes elaborated thus on Chomsky’s style: ‘Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things that he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.’ Chomsky’s outraged response was that ‘with five minutes research on the internet, any journalist could find many places where I described the massacre as a massacre, never with quotes. That alone ends the story.’ The Guardian readers’ editor accepted the validity of Chomsky’s complaint, and threw in an apology to Johnstone for good measure: ‘Ms Brockes’s misrepresentation of Prof Chomsky’s views on Srebrenica stemmed from her misunderstanding of his support for Ms Johnstone. Neither Prof Chomsky nor Ms Johnstone have [sic] ever denied the fact of the massacre.’

The big question is, of course, does Chomsky really deny the Srebrenica massacre ? Or, if he does not deny it outright, does he put such a spin on it that he denies it to all intents and purposes ?

Johnstone, for her part, denies it to all intents and purposes. Her book, Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (London: Pluto Press, 2002) puts the words ‘Srebrenica massacre’ in quotes (p. 106). She then goes on to argue: ‘In trying to understand what happened at Srebrenica, a number of factors should be taken into account.’ These are, she argues, that Srebrenica and other ‘safe areas’ had ‘served as Muslim military bases under UN protection’; that the ‘Muslim military force stationed in Srebrenica - some 5,000 men under the command of Naser Oric, had carried out murderous raids against nearby Serb villages’; that ‘[Bosnian President] Izetbegovic pulled Naser Oric out of Srebrenica prior to the anticipated Serb offensive, deliberately leaving the enclave undefended’; and that ‘Insofar as Muslims were actually executed following the fall of Srebrenica, such crimes bear all the signs of spontaneous acts of revenge rather than a project of ‘genocide’'. Furthermore: ‘Six years after the summer of 1995, ICTY forensic teams had exhumed 2,631 bodies in the region, and identified fewer than 50. In an area where fighting had raged for years, some of the bodies were certainly of Serbs as well as of Muslims. Of these bodies, 199 were found to have been bound or blindfolded, and must reasonably be presumed on the basis of the material evidence to have been executed.’ She concludes: ‘War crimes ? The Serbs themselves do not deny that crimes were committed. Part of a plan of genocide ? For this there is no evidence whatsoever.’ (pp. 109-118).

To sum up Johnstone’s position on Srebrenica: she blames everything that happened there on the Muslims; claims they provoked the Serb offensive in the first place; then deliberately engineered their own killing; and then exaggerated their own death-toll. She denies that thousands of Muslims were massacred; suggesting there is no evidence for a number higher than 199 - less than 2.5% of the accepted figure of eight thousand. And she eschews the word 'massacre' in favour of 'execution' - as if it were a question of criminals on Death Row, not of innocent civilians. It is as if she were to claim that less than 150,000 Jews, rather than six million, had died in the Holocaust; that the Jews had provoked and engineered the Nazi killings; that these killings had been 'executions'; and that the Jews had then exaggerated their death toll. She is ready to excuse the Srebrenica killings as retaliation for Oric’s earlier killings of Serb civilians - but does not mention that Oric’s crimes took place long after the war had already begun and Serb forces had begun slaughtering Muslims all over Bosnia. She does not mention how Srebrenica became an ‘enclave’ in the first place: through Serb aggression against, and conquest of, East Bosnia in 1992, and the killing and expulsion of the Muslim population that this involved - against which the Srebrenica Muslims were temporarily able to hold out as an 'enclave'. All in all, this can reasonably be called denial; insofar as it is not complete denial - she recognises less than 2.5% of the massacre - it is an apologia for the Serb forces. The Guardian readers’ editor’s claim that ‘Neither Prof Chomsky nor Ms Johnstone have [sic] ever denied the fact of the massacre’ is, therefore, at least half untrue.

But what about the other half, i.e. Chomsky ? An open letter to Ordfront, signed by Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Arundhati Roy and others, stated: 'We regard Johnstone's Fools' Crusade as an outstanding work, dissenting from the mainstream view but doing so by an appeal to fact and reason, in a great tradition.' In his personal letter to Ordfront in defence of Johnstone, Chomsky wrote: ‘I have known her for many years, have read the book, and feel that it is quite serious and important.’ Chomsky makes no criticism here of Johnstone’s massacre denial, or indeed anywhere else - except in the Brockes interview, which he has repudiated. Indeed, he endorses her revisionism: in response to Mikael van Reis's claim that 'She [Johnstone] insists that Serb atrocities - ethnic cleansing, torture camps, mass executions - are western propaganda', Chomsky replies that 'Johnstone argues - and, in fact, clearly demonstrates - that a good deal of what has been charged has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication.'

In the same letter, Chomsky makes much of an allegedly positive review of Johnstone's book in a British foreign-affairs journal: 'I also know that it has been very favourably reviewed, e.g., by the British scholarly journal International Affairs, journal of the Royal Academy.' He then continues, with his own idiosyncratic logic: ‘I don’t read Swedish journals of course, but it would be interesting to learn how the Swedish press explains the fact that their interpretation of Johnstone’s book differs so radically from that of Britain’s leading scholarly foreign affairs journal, International Affairs. I mentioned the very respectful review by Robert Caplan, of the University of Reading and Oxford [sic]. It is obligatory, surely, for those who condemn Johnstone’s book in the terms just reviewed to issue still harsher condemnation of International Affairs, as well as of the universities of Reading and Oxford, for allowing such a review to appear, and for allowing the author to escape censure.’ The essence of what Chomsky is saying, is that Johnstone received a positive review in a respectable scholarly journal, therefore her book must be good.

There are, first of all, a number of distortions in Chomsky's claim: International Affairs is the journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, not of the 'Royal Academy'; the RIIA is a para-governmental think tank, not a scholarly institution, therefore it makes no sense to describe International Affairs as 'Britain's leading scholarly foreign affairs journal'; the reviewer was Richard, not Robert Caplan; and his review of Johnstone's book was far from being as positive as Chomsky suggests. Caplan wrote: 'Diana Johnstone has written a revisionist and highly contentious account of Western policy and the dissolution of Yugoslavia... Yet for all of the book's constructive correctives, it is often difficult to recognize the world that Johnstone describes…The book also contains numerous errors of fact, on which Johnstone however relies to strengthen her case... Johnstone herself is very selective.'

Indeed, Caplan was overly polite in his criticisms of what is, in reality, an extremely poor book, one that is little more than a polemic in defence of the Serb-nationalist record during the wars of the 1990s - and an ill-informed one at that. Johnstone is not an investigative journalist who spent time in the former Yugoslavia doing fieldwork on the front-lines, like Ed Vulliamy, David Rohde or Roy Gutman. Nor is she a qualified academic who has done extensive research with Serbo-Croat primary sources, like Noel Malcolm or Norman Cigar. Indeed, she appears not to read Serbo-Croat, and her sources are mostly English-language, with a smattering of French and German. In short, she is an armchair Balkan amateur-enthusiast, and her book is of the sort that could be written from any office in Western Europe with access to the internet.

The quality of Johnstone’s ‘scholarship’ may be gauged from some of the Serb-nationalist falsehoods she repeats uncritically, such as the claim that the Serb Nazi-collaborationist leader Draza Mihailovic formed ‘the first armed guerrilla resistance to Nazi occupation in all of Europe’ (p. 291) - a myth long since exploded by serious historians (see for example Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: The Chetniks, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1975, pp. 124, 137). Or Johnstone’s claim that Croatia in 1990 ‘rapidly restored the symbols of the dread 1941 [Nazi-puppet] state - notably the red and white checkerboard flag, which to Serbs was the equivalent of the Nazi swastika’ (p. 23) - a falsehood that can be refuted by a glance at any complete version of the Yugoslav constitution, which clearly shows that the Croatian chequerboard - far from being a fascist symbol equivalent to the swastika - was an official symbol of state in Titoist Yugoslavia (see, for example the 1950 edition of the Yugoslav constitution, published by Sluzbeni list, Belgrade, which shows the Croatian chequerboard as a Yugoslav symbol of state on p. 115; or the 1974 edition published by Prosveta, Belgrade, which shows the Croatian chequerboard - in full colour - at the start of the text). It would require an entire article to list and refute all the numerous errors and falsehoods in Johnstone's book; Chomsky praises it because he sympathises with her political views, not because it has any scholarly merit.

Perhaps it would be unfair to label Chomsky a Srebrenica massacre-denier simply because he praises uncritically Johnstone’s massacre-denying book and endorses its conclusions. A fuller picture of Chomsky’s views on Srebrenica, however, can be gleaned from his interview with M. Junaid Alam of Left Hook on 17 December 2004, where he states that ‘Srebrenica was an enclave, lightly protected by UN forces, which was being used as a base for attacking nearby Serb villages. It was known that there’s going to be retaliation. When there was a retaliation, it was vicious. They trucked out all the women and children, they kept the men inside, and apparently slaughtered them. The estimates are thousands of people slaughtered.’ The key words here are ‘retaliation’, ‘apparently’ and ‘estimates’; the slaughter 'apparently' took place; the thousands killed were mere 'estimates'; they were, in any case, simply 'retaliation' for earlier Serb crimes. Note that while Chomsky raises doubts about the fact and scale of the killings, he is absolutely categorical that they were retribution for earlier Muslim crimes - the slaughter apparently took place, but if it did, then it was definitely retaliation. Read carefully, nothing that Chomsky says actually contradicts Johnstone's massacre-denying claims cited above.

Chomsky then goes on to compare the Serb behaviour favourably with that of the Americans in Fallujah: ‘Well, with Fallujah, the US didn’t truck out the women and children, it bombed them out.’ Chomsky does not mention the thousands of Bosnian women and children raped and murdered by Serb forces in other parts of Bosnia; nor those blown to bits by the Serb shelling of Sarajevo and other Bosnian towns, choosing instead to focus on the sparing of the women and children of Srebrenica. Johnstone, too, makes much of this: ‘one thing should be obvious: one does not commit ‘genocide’ by sparing women and children’. In fact, the Nazis began the systematic extermination of Jewish adult males in the USSR in 1941 before they began the systematic extermination of Jewish women and children, and the Nazis, unlike the Serb forces a half century later, were not being restrained by the democratic Western media.

Chomsky again compared Serb behaviour at Srebrenica favourably with American behaviour at Fallujah in his article ‘Imperial Presidency’ (Canadian Dimension, January/February 2005, vol. 39, no. 1), where he wrote of ‘Srebrenica, almost universally described as ‘genocide’ in the West. In that case, as we know in detail from the Dutch government report and other sources, the Muslim enclave in Serb territory, inadequately protected, was used as a base for attacks against Serb villages, and when the anticipated reaction took place, it was horrendous. The Serbs drove out all but military age men, and then moved in to kill them. There are differences with Falluja. Women and children were not bombed out of Srebrenica, but trucked out, and there will be no extensive efforts to exhume the last corpse of the packrats in their warrens in Falluja. There are other differences, arguably unfair to the Serbs.’ Not quite massacre denial, it is true; more of a massacre minimisation - since Chomsky nowhere recognises the figure of eight-thousand Muslim dead, it is entirely possible that he reduces the massacre to the fraction suggested by Johnstone, and therefore denies it to all intents and purposes. And he is certainly at pains to contrast 'the Serbs' favourably with the Americans.

One might criticise Brockes for not giving a more nuanced portrayal of Chomsky’s vague yet complex view of the Srebrenica massacre - were it not for the fact that Chomsky is notorious for the deliberate use of obscure and confusing language, designed to muddy the waters as to his real views, and the use of verbal trickery aimed at confusing his opponents. Take his 2001 exchange with Christopher Hitchens over the question of whether the US bombing of Sudan’s pharmaceutical factory in 1998 was a crime equivalent to 11 September:

Chomsky stated: ‘That Hitchens cannot mean what he writes is clear, in the first place, from his reference to the bombing of Sudan. He must be unaware that he is expressing such racist contempt for African victims of a terrorist crime, and cannot intend what his words imply.’

Hitchens replied: ‘Since his [Chomsky’s] remarks are directed at me, I’ll instance a less-than-half-truth as he applies it to myself. I ‘must be unaware’, he writes, that I ‘express such racist contempt for African victims of a terrorist crime.’ With his pitying tone of condescension, and his insertion of a deniable but particularly objectionable innuendo, I regret to say that Chomsky displays what have lately become his hallmarks.’

Chomsky then pulled his sleight-of-hand: ‘Hitchens claims that I accused him of a ‘propensity for racist contempt.’ I explicitly and unambiguously said the opposite.’

Given such word games and obfuscation, Chomsky should hardly complain when an earnest interviewer fails to interpret his well-camouflaged position as he would have it. Had he so wished, he could have avoided the entire imbroglio with Brockes by telling her unambiguously: ‘I recognise that several thousand Muslim civilians were massacred by Serb forces at Srebrenica in 1995'. Yet one rather suspects he wanted to have his cake and eat it: to put forward a ‘position’ that was compatible with those of the outright deniers, like Johnstone, but that nevertheless allows him formally to deny being a denier himself.

Instead of taking responsibility for his own insincerity and double-talk, he chose to punish the messenger - Brockes. He has then failed on two occasions - his letter published in the Guardian on 2 November and his open letter to the Guardian of 13 November - to state categorically that the massacre occurred in the way that it is understood to have done: as a massacre of several thousand innocent Muslim civilians by Serb forces. Nor is it true what Chomsky claims, that ‘with five minutes research on the internet, any journalist could find many places where I described the massacre as a massacre, never with quotes.' I have not yet discovered a single text on the internet in which Chomsky describes Srebrenica as a 'massacre'; if such a text exists, it is not as easy to find as Chomsky claims. Chomsky’s actual position on Srebrenica must remain an open question until he can actually bring himself to speak and write in plain English - for which nobody should hold their breath. Under these circumstances, the Guardian readers’ editor had no need to issue its apology, and had no right to impugn the journalistic professionalism of Brockes. It is to Brockes, not to Chomsky, that the Guardian should be apologising.

The outrage of Chomsky and his fellow-travellers over his portrayal as a Srebrenica massacre-denier is particularly ironic, given that several of these fellow-travellers are themselves overt Srebrenica deniers. Chomsky is notorious for having gone on record in 1977, in an article co-written with a certain Ed Herman, as claiming that Khmer Rouge atrocities were being exaggerated by the Western media (‘Distortions at Fourth Hand’, The Nation, 25 June 1977). Recently, the same Ed Herman founded a ‘Srebrenica Research Group’ to propagate the view that the Srebrenica massacre never happened. In his essay ‘The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre’, Herman writes that ‘the evidence for a massacre, certainly of one in which 8,000 men and boys were executed, has always been problematic, to say the least’. Herman concludes: ‘The ‘Srebrenica massacre’ [note the quote marks] is the greatest triumph of propaganda to emerge from the Balkan wars... But the link of this propaganda triumph to truth and justice is non-existent. The disconnection with truth is epitomised by the fact that the original estimate of 8,000, including 5,000 ‘missing’ - who had left Srebrenica for Bosnian Muslim lines - was maintained even after it had been quickly established that several thousand had reached those lines and that several thousand more had perished in battle. This nice round number lives on today in the face of a failure to find the executed bodies and despite the absence of a single satellite photo showing executions, bodies, digging, or trucks transporting bodies for reburial.’

In this way, Chomsky’s close collaborator Herman unashamedly holds a view that Chomsky is outraged to have attributed to himself. Both Chomsky and Herman are regular contributors to the website ‘ZNet’ - a haven for neo-Stalinist die-hards, several of whom are outright Srebrenica deniers. The publication of Herman’s above-cited article was greeted with uncritical approval by ZNet blogger David Petersen, who praised its ‘powerful analysis’. The same Petersen then reacted with outrage when Brockes attributed the same Srebrenica-denying view that he himself endorses to his comrade Chomsky, describing her interview as ‘lies, smears and more lies’. Just fancy that ! If to deny the Srebrenica massacre is shameful - which it is - why do Johnstone, Petersen and Herman do so ? But if they really think that the Srebrenica massacre did not happen, or was vastly smaller and more justifiable than is usually claimed, why should they be so outraged at Chomsky being described as a denier ? The answer brings us back to where we began: the Chomskyites and ZNet people are, at heart, embarrassed by their own position. In this, too, they resemble the controversial British historian recently arrested in Austria.

In this debate over whether or not Chomsky denied a massacre, it is important not to lose sight of something more damning and much less controversial: that Chomsky quite openly denies that genocide took place, either in Srebrenica or in Bosnia as a whole, and makes no bones about putting the word 'genocide' in quotes - this despite the fact that an international tribunal, established by the UN, has convicted a Bosnian Serb general of aiding and abetting genocide in Srebrenica. Indeed, the genocide-denial of Johnstone, Chomsky and their circle goes far beyond questioning the Srebrenica massacre. Chomsky was among those who supported the campaign in defence of Living Marxism (LM), the lunatic-fringe magazine that accused the news agency ITN of fabricating the existence of Serb concentration camps in Bosnia, on the basis of the writings of Thomas Deichmann, an amateur journalist and supporter of the Serb-nationalist cause. Deichmann claimed the camps in question were merely 'detention centres', and - although he had never visited them himself - presumed to know them well enough to claim that the pictures ITN had taken of them were deliberately intended to 'mislead' the Western public as to their true nature. ITN sued LM for libel, and the magazine was unable to produce a single witness who had actually seen the camps at first hand, whereas eye-witnesses such as Vulliamy testified as to their true, horrific character. LM's resounding defeat in the libel trial has not stopped Johnstone, in a recent commentary on the Chomsky-Brockes affair in the left-wing American magazine Counterpunch, from repeating LM's already discredited lies: "The issue raised by LM had to do with the way photographs taken at Trnopolje camp, by focusing on a thin man on the other side of a wire fence which in reality did not surround the Muslim inmates, but rather the ITN crew itself, was used to create the impression that what was happening in Bosnia was a repetition of a Nazi-style Holocaust." The campaign against Brockes has therefore simultaneously become a campaign to rewrite the history of the Bosnian war to deny that genocide took place.

Chomsky's denial that genocide took place in Bosnia, even after it has been established in international law that it did, and even after LM's lies about Serb camps were exposed as such in a British court, marks him down as a revisionist in the mould of Irving; the general thrust of Brockes’s exposure of him was therefore bang on target. In pandering to him, the Guardian has besmirched its own reputation and insulted the survivors of the genocide. Ironically, it was Guardian journalists such as Vulliamy and Maggie O'Kane who were in the forefront of bringing the genocide to light in 1992. That the Guardian - with this proud record - should have chosen to betray Brockes, its own journalist, by apologising on her behalf to an unabashed genocide-denier, means that this newspaper is now collaborating in the revisionist re-writing of the history of the Bosnian war.

BOSNIAKOPHOBIA INCITES SREBRENICA GENOCIDE DENIAL

Bosniakophobia is the prejudice against or hostility toward Bosniaks as a group. The prejudice or hostility is usually characterized by a combination of religious, racial, cultural and ethnic biases.

Bosniakophobia may be manifested in many ways, ranging from individual expressions of hatred and discrimination against individual Bosniaks to organized violent attacks by mobs or even state police or military attacks on entire Bosniak communities in the Balkans. Extreme instances of Bosniakophobia include the wave of ethnic cleansing of the 1990s and a state-sponsored attempt to assimilate Bosniaks, change their culture, and remove all traces of their Bosnian language during former Socialist Yugoslavia.

One of the most notable manifestation of Bosniakophobia is the denial of 1995 Srebrenica Genocide in which Serb forces slaughtered over at least 8,372 Bosniaks in U.N. designated "safe" enclave of Srebrenica. Srebrenica genocide victims included men, children, and elderly.

Bosniakophobia, just like any other form of hate and prejudice, can be stopped by education and promotion of diversity. Besides, we are all human, no matter what race, religion, or nationality we are. Denationalization and eradication of radicalism, combined with education of young people to accept tolerance and treat other people as they would like to be treated would be the best way to proceed. Srebrenica genocide denial is just disgusting and it is direct result of hatred towards Bosniaks.

Summary:

Bosniakophobia is a sentiment of hostility or hatred towards Bosniaks and the concept of multi-cultural and united Bosnia-Herzegovina in its present borders. Its use in the English language has been limited. Bosniakophobia is widespread in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croatia.

SREBRENICA GENOCIDE MASS GRAVES

(Research Courtesy of Srebrenica Genocide Blog)

PHOTO: Forensic archaeologist Matthew Vennemeyer of Ohio, U.S., of the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspects body remains in a mass-grave site in a remote mountain area near the village of Kamenica, Bosnia, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008.

More remains of the Srebrenica genocide victims have been exhumed from a mass grave in eastern Bosnia - some 30 kilometers from Srebrenica.

Kamenica mass grave is the tenth secondary grave found in the village of Kamenica, where Bosnian Serbs brought bodies to cover up the Srebrenica massacre - Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. Around 4,000 complete and incomplete bodies of Srebrenica victims have so far been exhumed from 10 mass graves in the Kamenica valley alone.

"So far we have exhumed 97 complete and 180 incomplete skeletons," Murat Hurtic of Bosnia's Missing Persons Commission is quoted as saying to FENA (Bosnia's Federal News Agency). The exhumation of Kamenica mass grave, near the eastern town of Zvornik, began in mid-August and is expected to continue for at least another week, Hurtic said.

The previously exhumed sites contained over 2,000 bodies from the July 1995 massacre. Serb forces overran the then U.N.-protected Bosniak enclave of Srebrenica in the final phase of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, summarily killing more than 8,000 Muslim men and children, and forcibly deporting roughly 20,000 women in a U.N.-assisted ethnic cleansing of the enclave.

The victims were initially buried in a dozen mass graves. But after the release of satellite pictures showing large portions of freshly disturbed ground, Serbs moved them to other locations in order to cover up the crimes. The body parts were separated during reburial using bulldozers, and forensic experts sometimes found parts of a single person buried in three different so-called secondary graves.

PHOTO: British forensic archaeologist Esma Alicehajic, front and Matthew Vennemeyer of Ohio, U.S., rear, members of International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspect body remains in a mass-grave site in a remote mountain area near the village of Kamenica, Bosnia, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008.

PHOTO: Forensic experts from the International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, inspect body remains in a mass-grave site in a remote mountain area near the village of Kamenica, Bosnia, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008.

More about Kamenica "Death Valley" mass graves directly from Srebrenica Genocide Blog:

Photos of Srebrenica Genocide Victims Misused by Serbian Nationalists (December 6th 2007)
Short excerpt: This kind of propaganda can be only produced by the sickest minds in order to misinform the public; and this is what they have been doing for the last 15 years with their bold faced lies and propaganda...

Kamenica Death Valley Yields 616 More Corpses (November 23 2007)
Short excerpt: We found 76 complete and 540 incomplete bodies," said Ismet Musić, an official of the regional commission for missing persons, standing on the edge of a muddy grave where white-clad forensic pathologists cleaned up bones. This brings the total number of exhumed bodies to over 4,200 just from the "Death Valley" area alone...

More Victims Found as 11th Anniversary of Genocide Looms (July 06 2006)
Short excerpt: Forensic experts said on Thursday they had unearthed the remains of 268 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - the first legally established case of genocide in Europe after the Holocaust - days before its 11th anniversary...

11th Anniversary of the Massacre (July 11th 2006)
Short excerpt: Meanwhile, new Srebrenica victims were being unearthed at one of the largest mass graves discovered last month in the village of Kamenica, some 30 kilometers from Srebrenica. Among them - body remains of children; the youngest victim was a 10 year old girl...

Kamenica Mass Grave Yields Over 1,000 Body Parts (August 11 2006)
Short excerpt: A 10-person team, including forensic experts from Canada and Serbia employed by the Bosnia-based International Commission on Missing Persons, worked in the 18-meter by 4-meter (60 ft by 13 ft) grave...

Srebrenica Genocide: Crime Against All Humanity (August 18 2006)
Short excerpt: In Potocari on July 12 a 14-year-old Bosniak girl hung herself with her scarf after she and her 12-year old cousin were raped by Serb soldiers. By this time Serb soldiers had killed at least 99 people, including 20 to 30 women and children...

Genocide Trial Without Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic (August 22 2006)
Short excerpt: “Defenceless men and boys [were] executed by firing squads, buried in mass graves and then dug up and buried again in an attempt to conceal the truth from the world." Chief U.N. Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said many victims had been bound and blindfolded "to make the murder easier for the executioners"...

Srebrenica Genocide Trials and Mass Graves (September 18 2006)
Short excerpt: Ahmo Hasic "believed to be one of only 12 men who survived the slaughter of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys" told the judges he stayed alive only by playing dead after Serb soldiers started shooting.The trial chamber heard a similar testimony last week from Mevludin Oric who described how he lay under a pile of dead bodies for several hours...

ATTACKS ON BOSNIAKS IN REPUBLIKA SRPSKA MUST STOP IMMEDIATELY

Editor's Note: Here is a press release we received from the Congress of North American Bosniaks condemning attacks on Bosniaks in Republika Srpska. RS is a Bosnian Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina built on ethnic cleansing and genocide in the early 90's.

Congress of North America Bosniaks (CNAB) condemns orchestrated attacks on Bosniaks in “Republika Srpska” (RS) entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CBNA), an umbrella organization representing 350,000 Bosniaks living in The United States and Canada strongly condemns the recent attacks against Bosniaks and their religious building during the most sacred holiday for Bosniaks, Ramadan. There have been many attacks on refugee returnees, attacks and vandalizing of mosques in RS, and threats to imams. Freedom to worship is one of the most fundamental rights and must be protected.

Attacks on mosques in Kotor Varos, Bosanski Novi, Banja Luka and elsewhere and open and direct provocation against the Bosniaks trying to enjoy their religious holidays are direct insult to European humanitarian law standards and respect for all people’s religious beliefs. These attacks are unprovoked and go unpunished by the RS Police which was, consequently, created as a result of the bloody ethnic cleansing campaign against Bosniaks in 90’s war.

The international community failed to protect Bosnia during the war! Will it fail again to stand up for the Bosnia’s right to be a democratic, multi-ethnic state with one central government and to protect Bosniaks, in the heart of Europe?

Attacks on Bosniaks and mosques in RS must be stopped and those who commit such despicable crimes must be punished.

On behalf of the CNAB,

Haris Alibasic
Spokesperson


Board of Directors:
Emir Ramić, President
Murat Muratović, Vice President
Nerma Čampara, Treasurer

Spokespersons:
Mirsad Smajić, Djenita Pašić, Uzeir Ramić, Amir Čačković, Abid Talić.

VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE IN SREBRENICA: WOMEN AND CHILDREN

(Research Courtesy of Srebrenica Genocide Blog)

NOTE: Expanded Edition (Reading Time: 10-15 minutes)
Updated: September 17, 2008 / Feel Free to Copy and Redistribute
By: Srebrenica Genocide Blog

QUESTION: In order to deny and justify Srebrenica genocide, many apologists question how could Serbs commit genocide by killing mostly men and elderly, while at the same time deciding to deport most women and children from the U.N. 'protected' Srebrenica enclave? This is something that can also puzzle individuals without an apologist agenda. More than 8000 Bosniaks were executed during the genocide at Srebrenica, mainly men, but also many children and some women as well. About 20,000 women were separated from their menfolk and forcibly deported from the enclave. A prominent Srebrenica genocide denier and a pro-Serbian lobbyist - former U.N. General Lewis Mackenzie - is on record as saying that: "...if you’re committing genocide, you don’t let the women go since they are key to perpetuating the very group you are trying to eliminate." So, the question is: Can one commit genocide by letting the women and children go?

ANSWER: Here is a detailed answer to this question directly from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Appeals Chamber, Prosecutor vs. Radislav Krstic):

31. As the Trial Chamber explained, forcible transfer could be an additional means by which to ensure the physical destruction of the Bosnian Muslim community in Srebrenica. The transfer completed the removal of all Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica, thereby eliminating even the residual possibility that the Muslim community in the area could reconstitute itself. The decision not to kill the women or children may be explained by the Bosnian Serbs’ sensitivity to public opinion. In contrast to the killing of the captured military men, such an action could not easily be kept secret, or disguised as a military operation, and so carried an increased risk of attracting international censure.

32. In determining that genocide occurred at Srebrenica, the cardinal question is whether the intent to commit genocide existed. While this intent must be supported by the factual matrix, the offence of genocide does not require proof that the perpetrator chose the most efficient method to accomplish his objective of destroying the targeted part. Even where the method selected will not implement the perpetrator’s intent to the fullest, leaving that destruction incomplete, this ineffectiveness alone does not preclude a finding of genocidal intent. The international attention focused on Srebrenica, combined with the presence of the UN troops in the area, prevented those members of the VRS [Bosnian Serb Army] Main Staff who devised the genocidal plan from putting it into action in the most direct and efficient way. Constrained by the circumstances, they adopted the method which would allow them to implement the genocidal design while minimizing the risk of retribution.

The Appeals Chamber Judgment, Prosecutor vs. Radislav Krstic, is publicly available at the ICTY web site.

In a U.N. assisted ethnic cleansing, Srebrenica women were forcibly bussed to the Government-controlled territory. Some busses never reached the safety. For example, according to the witness accounts given by Srebrenica genocide survivor - Kadir Habibovic - who hid himself on one of the first buses taking women and children from the Dutch United Nations base in Potocari to government-held territory in Kladanj, "Habibovic saw at least one vehicle full of Muslim women being driven away from Bosnian government-held territory." One of his captors at one point complained that they were not getting a good choice of the Muslim women from Srebrenica. [source]

Habibovic's account corroborates reports from refugees that many Srebrenica women were raped by Bosnian Serb soldiers. Habibovic said the men were taken to a remote location near Rasica Gai late in the evening. When the first group was taken from the truck and shot, he said he leapt from the truck and tumbled down a nearby slope. Gunfire from the soldiers missed him and he escaped. He later heard a large amount of gunfire, which he believes were the other prisoners being killed. He reached government-held territory on Aug 20, with his wounds still fresh.

Here are some excerpts from the ICTY's (International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia) 260 page-rulling in the case of Prosecutor vs. Krstic which resulted in Srebrenica genocide conviction:

43. Killings occurred.

In the late morning of 12 July 1995, a witness saw a pile of 20 to 30 bodies heaped up behind the Transport Building in Potocari, alongside a tractor-like machine. Another testified that, at around 1200 hours on 12 July, he saw a soldier slay a child with a knife in the middle of a crowd of expellees. He also said that he saw Serb soldiers execute more than a hundred Bosnian Muslim men in the area behind the Zinc Factory and then load their bodies onto a truck, although the number and methodical nature of the murders attested to by this witness stand in contrast to other evidence on the Trial Record that indicates that the killings in Potocari were sporadic in nature.

44. As evening fell, the terror deepened.

Screams, gunshots and other frightening noises were audible throughout the night and no one could sleep. Soldiers were picking people out of thecrowd and taking them away: some returned; others did not. Witness T recounted how three brothers – one merely a child and the others in their teens – were taken out in the night. When the boys’ mother went looking for them, she found them with their throats slit.

45. That night, a Dutch Bat medical orderly came across two Serb soldiers raping a young woman:

"[W]e saw two Serb soldiers, one of them was standing guard and the other one was lying on the girl, with his pants off. And we saw a girl lying on the ground, on some kind of mattress. There was blood on the mattress, even she was covered with blood. She had bruises on her legs. There was even blood coming down her legs. She was in total shock. She went totally crazy.”

46. Bosnian Muslim refugees nearby could see the rape, but could do nothing about it becauseof Serb soldiers standing nearby. Other people heard women screaming, or saw women being dragged away. Several individuals were so terrified that they committed suicide by hanging themselves. Throughout the night and early the next morning, stories about the rapes and killings spread through the crowd and the terror in the camp escalated.

.... ... ...

150. On 12 and 13 July 1995, upon the arrival of Serb forces in Potocari, the Bosnian Muslim refugees taking shelter in and around the compound were subjected to a terror campaign comprised of threats, insults, looting and burning of nearby houses, beatings, rapes, and murders.

... ... ...

517. More significantly, rapes and killings were reported by credible witnesses and some committed suicide out of terror. The entire situation in Potocari has been depicted as a campaign of terror. As an ultimate suffering, some women about to board the buses had their young sons dragged away from them, never to be seen again.

According to the Secretary-General's Report, A/54/549:

389. The same day [17 July 1995], one of the Dutchbat soldiers, during his brief stay in Zagreb upon return from Serb-held territory, was quoted as telling a member of the press that "hunting season [is] in full swing... it is not only men supposedly belonging to the Bosnian Government who are targeted... women, including pregnant ones, children and old people aren't spared. Some are shot and wounded, others have had their ears cut off and some women have been raped.

The breakthrough came when prosecutors established that these rapes were entirely foreseeable. Judges agreed that the generals in charge should have reasonably predicted that, under these conditions, the sexual assaults were likely. It was concluded that any rapes that took place in Srebrenica were therefore the fault of the Serb Army's commanders.

RADOVAN KARADZIC USES COURT TO MOCK JUSTICE, JUDGES TOLERATE HIS BEHAVIOR

Indicted Srebrenica genocide architect, Radovan Karadzic, is not interested in a fair trial at International Criminal Tribunal. The only thing he is interested in is to put up his last show and use the Court as a political platform. It's time for Judges to wake up and stop criminals like Karadzic from disrespecting the Court and insulting the victims. If judges continue to tolerate Karadzic's inappropriate behavior, then the Court's credibility will be at stake.

Full report, re-published from Voice of America (VOA) for non-commercial, Fair Use, purposes:

War Crimes Tribunal's Credibility at Stake in Karadzic Trial
By Andre de Nesnera Washington

Radovan Karadzic faces 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes stemming from the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. He and Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, who is still at large, are accused of ordering what is considered to be the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War: the massacre of an estimated 8,000 Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys in the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Appearing before the court late last month, Karadzic refused to plead to the charges against him. The presiding judge Iain Bonomy entered a not guilty plea for him on all 11 counts. The court then adjourned and is expected to resume its proceedings against Karadzic later this month.

The highest profile case to date was that of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, also accused of genocide. Milosevic died in detention in March 2006, just months before a verdict was due.

Radovan Karadzic has decided he does not need a lawyer and will represent himself.

Experts such as Paul Williams, former legal adviser to the Bosnian government, say that was a tactic used by Slobodan Milosevic.

"Although we look at the tribunal as a legal mechanism, President Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic look at it as a political platform," he said. "Karadzic has no desire to receive a fair trial, or to have his day in court. He sees that this is his last show."

"And he wants to use the tribunal as a political platform to make his case for his innocence. And I don't mean legal innocence here, I think he believes that he'll be found guilty and sent to prison. He also wants to 'tell his story'. Karadzic sees that he will have a year or so before the tribunal to 'tell his story'. He's been hiding for the last 12 years and now is his chance to say his peace, to say his story," he added.

Analysts say Karadzic must not be allowed to make a mockery of the trial - something Milosevic was able to do very effectively.

Paul Williams and others say Karadzic's trial will be crucial for the credibility of the international court. "The tribunal has a very mixed record. Justice Goldstone [Richard Goldstone: chief prosecutor from 1994-96] was phenomenal in that he came out very early and very aggressively and indicted Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic," he said.

"But then there was a change of regime at the tribunal. Goldstone left and new prosecutors came in and the tribunal became timid and tardy," he said. "It was slow to indict Milosevic, it was slow to exercise its jurisdiction in Kosovo and by many accounts was a failure. It then failed in the Milosevic trial. Now is the time for the tribunal to re-establish its credibility by having an effective and a fair prosecution of Karadzic and to re-establish its role in the peace process.

"Experts, such as Charles Kupchan with the Council on Foreign Relations, say bringing to justice indicted war criminals such as Radovan Karadzic, is the first step in the process of reconciliation and healing among the various ethnic groups in the region.

"If you take a somewhat longer time horizon and you say what kind of events are important to communal healing, to collective healing, these apprehensions, these trials, these prosecutions do play an important role even on a personal basis, because there is a sense that justice is being served, there is a sense that those responsible for crimes against humanity are being held accountable," he said.

Kupchan and other experts say the Karadzic trial also sends a powerful message to other leaders indicted for alleged war crimes, that it may take time, but ultimately they will be arrested and face justice for their crimes.

DUTCH SREBRENICA GENOCIDE DENIERS (DUTCHBAT)

(Research courtesy of Srebrenica Genocide Blog)

A group of former Dutch soldiers with questionable agenda and pro-Serb war-crimes apologist leanings are on a crusade to deny Srebrenica genocide and get their 15 minutes of shame...

Acccording to Serbia's Vecernje Novosti, a group of former Dutch soldiers who were stationed in Srebrenica enclave in 1995, came to Belgrade on Wednesday "at their own expense" to meet with Milivoje Ivanisevic.

Milivoje Ivanisevic is a Belgrade-based Srebrenica genocide denier whose, so called, research has been discredited by the International Criminal Tribunal as "...a shameful denial and relativisation of the facts that this court has established beyond reasonable doubt about the genocide committed in Srebrenica." (source: ICTY)

This fringe group of Dutch activists, who clearly have questionable agenda and pro-Serb leanings, say they want to testify in Radovan Karadzic's favor. As ridiculous as it may seem, but these offensive liars and Srebrenica genocide deniers claim that Serb Army did not commit crimes in Srebrenica. Karadzic, the architect of Srebrenica genocide, is currently on trial at the Hague.

We spoke to two Srebrenica genocide survivors and they told us they have dealt with this type of propaganda for the last 13 years. For Srebrenica genocide survivors, this kind of irresponsible behavior, on the part of the Dutch, is nothing new. After all, the Dutch soldiers abandoned people of Srebrenica in 1995 and left disgusting material behind themselves (see photos of Dutch graffiti in Srebrenica).

Activist Dutch veterans told Ivanisevic they had to "protect themselves from the Muslims, rather than protect Muslims from the Serbs" in Srebrenica. What they failed to mention is that Serb soldiers wore Dutch helmets and disguised themselves as UN peacekeepers to trick Bosniak population of Srebrenica into surrendering. In this situation, it was impossible to distinguish between real and fake peacekeepers.

Srebrenica genocide resulted in the summary executions of 8,000 Bosniaks, including at last 500 children, and forcible deportations of thousands of women and children. Women would not be spared, but Serbs were sensitive to the public opinion so they opted for forcible deportations instead (read more here) - as concluded by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague.

HOW MANY BOSNIAKS (MUSLIMS) DIED DURING SREBRENICA GENOCIDE?

(Research courtesy of Srebrenica Genocide Blog)

On June 5, 2005 Bosnia's Federal Commission for Missing Persons issued a list of 8,106 individuals who have been reliably established, from multiple independent sources, to have gone missing and/or been killed in and around Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 [click to see list]. The Federal Commission's list was made public early in June and it included personal names, parents' names, dates of birth, and unique citizen's registration numbers victims. A verification process is underway for more victims whose disappearance or death has not yet been verified from two or more independent sources.

A marble stone (click to see photo) at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial Center Potocari is engraved with 8,370 names of Srebrenica victims (info as of July 6th, 2006).

On June 21st 2007, a four-year study by the internationally evaluated the Bosnian Book of Dead concluded that 8,460 Bosniaks were killed in Srebrenica; 6565 (or 77.6%) were civilians (including 441 children ranging from infants to teens) and 1,895 (or 22.4%) were soldiers [click to read more about this topic].

In a case of Srebrenica massacre, during and after the war, many families asked that their family members be buried as soldiers, for various reasons, although they died as civilians, POW's or as soldiers away from front lines. The most common reason for these requests was access to social support for families of killed soldiers. In other words and with respect to Srebrenica genocide; POW's and surrendered soldiers without weapons were clearly non-combatants at the time of their deaths. Both civilians and POW's were summarily executed, burried in mass graves, and after former U.S. secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced the United States had satellite photos showing mass graves, the perpetrators went out and dug the bodies and moved them. Some bodies could be found in 4 different locations, separated up to 50km from each other. When registering such cases, the Research and Documentation Center was governed by the official data that was available. The evaluation indicates that such practices lead to over-reporting of soldiers and under-reporting of civilians.

The major challenge in Bosnia is the identification of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Their bodies had initially been buried in a dozen of mass graves, but Bosnian Serbs moved them later by buldozers to a number of other locations in order to cover up their crime. Their body parts were separated, and forensic experts have sometimes found parts of a single victim buried in three different mass graves. In a recently given interview to Newsweek, Kathryne Bomberger - the director general of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), confirmed at least 8,000 victims based on DNA identification:

"In 1999 we had hit a brick wall in making identifications—if there was no body there was no crime. After [former U.S. secretary of State] Madeleine Albright said [the United States] had satellite photos showing mass graves, the perpetrators went out and dug the bodies and moved them. We found one body in four different locations 50km [30 miles] apart. So we went to the families and said, 'We are not sure if [DNA] is going to work but work with us and we will try.' We had to educate them about this DNA. We had to mount a huge campaign to take blood samples. We had to build a lab, and it was not until 2002 that we had a functioning process. We made our first DNA match of a 15-year-old boy from Srebrenica in 2001 (click here to see photo).... We can for the first time say that the 8,000 — maybe more but certainly not less — missing from Srebrenica is accurate. We can tell this based on the rate of blood-sample collection. You have to collect at least three different family members’ blood samples for every missing person." [source: Newsweek]